Researchers have begun giving healthy volunteers in the U.S. an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE, the latest study exploring a potential defense against the respiratory disease.
Researchers at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine in Manhattan and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore said Tuesday they began injecting people with the first of four vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.
“With our unique and robust clinical study program underway, starting in Europe and now the U.S., we look forward to advancing quickly and collaboratively with our partners at BioNTech and regulatory authorities to bring a safe and efficacious vaccine to the patients who need it most,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.
“The short, less than four-month time frame in which we’ve been able to move from preclinical studies to human testing, is extraordinary,” he added.
The experimental vaccine contains genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA. The mRNA is a genetic code that tells cells what to build — in this case, an antigen that may induce an immune response for the virus.
The trial will test the experimental vaccine on adults ages 18 to 55 in the first stage before moving on to older groups, the company said, adding it hopes to test up to 360 people.
